Remember that part of Forrest Gump where Forrest and Captain Dan are looking for shrimp but can’t find any because there’s too much competition for shrimp, but then the hurricane passes through and suddenly there’s no competition for shrimp and there’s just tons of shrimp to be had? This story is mostly not like that one, except it ends with a lot more shrimp than it starts with.
A new shrimp farming technology devised by researchers in Texas is churning out record-setting levels of shrimp. Called super-intensive stacked raceways, its a system of indoor aquaculture that generates far more shrimp per cubic meter of water than open pond farming or any other aquaculture technique. And it could be deployed just about anywhere.
The shrimp grow in huge enclosed tubs called raceways, stacked four high in a column. As the shrimp develop and grow under computer-controlled conditions (the water is carefully circulated but not completely renewed, keeping environmental costs and water usage in check), they are moved downward from one raceway to the next–baby shrimp go in the top and progress downward to the bottom raceway, from which they are eventually harvested.